The Habits Of Our Hearts

Chapter 1

Cruelty. It's usually associated with a callous nature. Something like torture is cruel and unnerving, it's horrifying obviously. However, what might not be realized is that there are different types of cruelty. Someone can be undoubtedly and unwavering kind but cruel nonetheless.

"Please be happy."

Yuu hasn't experienced much trauma in his life. He hasn't really been overly scarred by anything. At the very least, he doesn't register it if something had been amiss. Yuu likes to think of himself as mentally resilient. He tends to be calm-headed, charming, and loquacious when he needs to be. He lives a relatively nice life. He lives in a good apartment, works in the career of his choice, and has a few friends. Even some from his high school days, however, one of them isn't quite as close as he would wish.

Chiaki Yoshino. An idiot who was always scribbling in his notebook rather than taking notes. He probably got chewed out after class every time they got their exam results back for drawing on the question sheet. He wasn't smart at all, he lacked basic intelligence and common sense in most regards. If someone had to be in the dictionary for the word 'easy-going', a picture of Chiaki would be there. He always felt like a naturally born procastionater who didn't mind the bigger picture. He likes the smaller, close to his face sort of things. He cherishes and adores the things in front of him rather than reaching for outside his personal box filled with the things he faces everyday.

Yuu could understand him. He envied him in a way, ever since they were in class together. Unlike Chiaki, he worried about his grades and made a continuous effort to stay focus in class than distract himself by giving into the itch to draw on that unused side of the notebook during note time. He often wished he could be like him. He wished he could smile more freely, laugh louder, and run with the flow of life. Maybe that's what he liked about him.

That envy that had clawed its way into his heart but before he knew it, that envy grew to a liking of Chiaki's character. It was just friends playing around after school, walking home together, admiring the same works, and running circles around their annoying overbearing parents. That comfortability of their friendship and those prior feelings blossomed into something new, something unexpected. It was worrying, terrifying even.

Being in love with a guy is terrifying.

To not admit it yourself but to someone else is even worse. In Japan, that's weird. It seemed like a nuisance more than anything in this generation. With the population decreasing with each passing year and the government getting anxious, to the point of paying people to have unsafe sex and have a fricking kid, being gay didn't help those matters. Not to mention, some saw it as a fruitless effort to find love or inequadate to a love between a heterosexual couple.

It's just off for the country he was born in. It didn't bother him at really all anymore, however, it worried him to death as a kid. Liking someone you were close to is terrifying. A friend who is one, if not the most, of the important people in life can be utterly devasting. For those who like the opposite sex, they just have to worry if the other likes them. However, in Yuu's case, not only did he have to worry about that but if Chiaki would shove him away and declare he hated Yuu for liking men.

He couldn't just make a move. Coming to terms with his feelings is one thing but telling Chiaki? It wasn't nearly the same in any way. He decided to stay as a friend but let time tell the truth of his friend's feelings. He's spent years just as a friend, slowly getting brave enough to jokingly flirt or drop hints. Never has he met a man so thick-headed and dense as Chiaki. Sometimes, it was cute. Other times, it made Yuu want to murder him.

He's an idiot, he knows he is. Even when they were back in school, before the feelings were realized, Chiaki had always seemed to preferred Hatori. Hatori was taller, stronger, and smarter than Yuu. He made better grades everywhere, whether it was in PE or Mathematics. The only place where Yuu could have the upperhand, it was being just like Chiaki. They both loved manga and drawing, hell, Chiaki even wanted to make his own manga. He remembers him shyly admitting with his face so red and his voice stuttering like a broken record about wanting to write romantic novel when Yuu discovered a drawing page that today he would label as a rough-sketch of a character sheet.